‘Oh! well do I know why I weep: there are three lovely damsels who bathe in that lake, but I cannot capture them.’
‘What do you want, then?’ asks this old man. ‘Would you catch the whole three of them?’
‘No,’ he replied, ‘I wish to catch only one of them, the youngest one.’
‘Very well, then, listen: I am going to dig a pit for you; whenever you see them coming for a swim, hide yourself in this hole, and wait there in silence. As soon as they have laid down their clothes, jump up and seize hold of the smock belonging to the youngest one. She will beg you to give it up to her, but do not give it up.’
Well, these three damsels came; they took off their smocks, and laid each of them aside. The nobleman’s son watched them from his pit; he jumped out; he seized hold of the smock belonging to the youngest one. She beseeches him to give it back to her, but he will not consent to do so. The two other sisters fly away with the good God, and he returns to his home with the young damsel. His father sees that he brings a beautiful damsel with him. Well, he marries her. They live together for five years. They had [[190]]a very pretty young son. But as for the winged smock he had a special room made, into which he locked it, and the key of the room he gave to his mother to take care of. Madman that he was! He would have done better had he burned that smock.
One day he went out into the fields. Then his wife spoke thus to his mother, ‘Mother, five years now have I been here, and I know not what there is in my husband’s room, because he always keeps it hidden from me.’
Then the mother said to her, ‘Well, come with me; I am going to show it to you.’
‘That is right, mother. I wish it much, because he ought not to hide anything from me, for I would not rob him of anything, to hand it over to the lads.’
She went into that room with his mother; she sees that her smock with the two wings is there.
‘Mother,’ she said, ‘may I again don this smock, to see whether I am as beautiful still as I was once?’